Good Article: Where Is This 'SAFER' America?

[LittleApple81]

by Charley Reese
President George Bush says that America is safer because of our war against Iraq. I respectfully disagree.

For one thing, our "shock and awe" campaign has turned into a show and tell of America's military limitations. We have not been able to defeat the Iraqi resistance, and trying to do so has put a great strain on our military forces. And now the whole world knows it.

Nor have we been able to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure. Fifteen months of American occupation and the Iraqis still don't have full-time, reliable electric service. Evidence of our failure is the fact that Paul Bremer, our proconsul, had to almost surreptitiously turn over the reins to an interim government and practically sneak out of Iraq surrounded by heavy security. No farewell parties for him.

It remains to be seen if the Iraqi people will accept the interim government as anything but an Iraqi face on an American occupation. We, after all, refused to vacate the presidential palace and are using that for our embassy with its ridiculous 1,000-person staff. The occupational authority put great limits on what the interim government could do. And its leader is a man well known to the Iraqis to have been on the CIA's payroll.

SNIP..

The Bush administration has not been honest with the American people. If you wish to dump all the blame for bad intelligence on the CIA, you can certainly do that. Bush did, but has done nothing to improve the agency. Yet the Bush people certainly exaggerated the situation. They made absurd statements, such as that Iraq could have a nuclear bomb within a year and the laughable claim by Bush that Saddam's toylike drones might attack the United States. They ignored everyone in the intelligence community who had a different viewpoint.

SNIP...

Furthermore, Bush's obsession with Iraq diverted resources from the hunt for bin Laden and the rest of the Taliban. Consequently, there are two unfinished jobs, Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush administration's rosy claims about those two countries are as inaccurate as its claims about weapons of mass destruction. There have been more, not fewer, terrorist attacks since the war in Iraq. Warlords financed by opium run Afghanistan, and there is no security at all in Iraq.

MORE AT LINK:
http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=3048

[LittleApple81]

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